Better Know A Barcelona Startup: Adverway @Adverway

Marketing’s not all fun and games, but it certainly can include them. With the growth of the web and the decrease in our attention spans (*opens Facebook tab*), social games have snuck on to brand media plans. They’re smart ways to entertain and engage—players spend an average of 7 to 30 minutes on an advergame. They’re also expensive. That amount of time holds a lot of value. And you pay for it.

Developers can program an awesome game for thousands of dollars. Joan Miquel Martínez and his buddies/business partners know this: games are fun; budget busters are not. So in 2013 they built Adverway, a platform that allows brands to fully customize advergames without coughing up the big bucks. “Our will and challenge is to democratize the game based marketing industry for all kind of brands,” says Joan Miquel. The Adverway tool evens the field.

Within hours, you can launch an advergame to Facebook and embed it in a website. No coding, no pain. That’s the team’s job. They developed, and continue to develop, a list of popular casual games for users to choose. From “Jewels” to Asteroids-style “Reactions,” Adverway provides the basics, but its users make the game come to life. With the option to upload your own images, a graphic designer can totally transform the template. Control all aspects of your game in the mechanics section, where you can make the game as easy as difficult as your target audience prefers.

Create unlimited proposals and grant access to anyone in on the project. Only once everybody’s satisfied do you launch the product and pay. From there, let the games begin. Players, a.k.a. brand fans and future consumers, pool important metrics for you to download and review.

Located at Itnig, a business accelerator startup, the folks at Barcelona startup Adverway care about user experience just as much as player experience. Curiosity, eager ears, and open minds help them enhance the platform. “Adverway users are able to build their own games without our assistance”, remarks Joan Miquel. “This is fundamental for our success as a social media platform: our product has to be easy to use and made for marketers.” Their constant desire to improve has reeled in a range of happy clients. Fashion outlet Privalia and garden supplier Hozelock both designed unique and successful games through Adverway. For more, check out the case studies.

But as sure as Frogger hops across highways, consumer behavior will change. To stay ahead of the curve, Adverway prepares to go beyond Facebook. They plan to link their platform to other social networks like Instagram, which has a remarkable user reach. Joan Miquel explains, “In the end, mobile devices will become the next social network no matter any application or social service.” Call it digital integration. Call it inbound marketing. Call it shooting down pixel aliens. As Adverway grows their business, they hope to grow yours.

About Stewart Masters

Stewart Masters is a Co-founder and Contributing Editor at Barcinno where he writes about the local ecosystem and his experience as an entrepreneur. He is also the co-founder @Clubkviar, a leading online reservations service for top restaurants in Europe. You can follow him here @Stewartdmasters or +StewartMasters